Their date was OK.
Not disastrous, not riddled with problematic
disagreements, conflict or tension
or any sort of passionate anything.
They ate in one of the Mamoun restaurants.
They each knew what to order.
Steve was pleasant enough.
So was Naomi. They could have been
high school friends, meeting for
a pleasant enough dinner. At the end
of the meal (no coffee, no dessert, not
even a shared baklava, they both knew
they’d never see one another again.
Here's a Steve Story I started earlier.
Steve, nicknamed Pudge
Bill, my first husband, had a fraternity “little brother” named Steve. Most relevant facts—all the frat boys had nicknames. Pudge’s parents both died suddenly during his first year of college. He was neither skinny nor fat, mostly it was the pudgy cheeks. Bill genuinely looked after him, including living with him in Evanston after Pudge graduated a year before I did. I moved in with them both when Bill and I got married. Most irregular, thought many of my mother’s friends. Pudge, avoiding the draft, told us he was becoming a civilian employee of the Army and moved to DC. Decades later we learned it was the CIA!